Five Times Dean Got Burned & One Time He Drowned
by AuntMo
Summary: For as long as he could remember, fire had been Dean Winchester's greatest natural enemy. With all of the world's supernatural assailants after him, he really didn't need to get on the bad side of an element. Spoilers for 7.02; possibly 7.03


**Title:** Five Times Dean Winchester Got Burned and One Time He Drowned  
><strong>Author:<strong> AuntMo  
><strong>Characters: <strong>Dean, mentions of Mary, John, Sam, Bobby, Cas, others  
><strong>Genrepairing: **Gen  
><strong>Rating: <strong>PG-13  
><strong>Word-count:<strong> 1242  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> Spoilers through 7.02 Hello, Cruel World, possibly 7.03 (though no direct reference)  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Language; childhood trauma and injury; character death (canon); mentions of torture  
><strong>Summary:<strong> For as long as he could remember, fire had been Dean Winchester's greatest natural enemy. With all of the world's supernatural assailants after him, he really didn't need to get on the bad side of an element. But somehow he had managed to do just that.  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters.

**A/N:** Most of this was written in between the time 7.02and 7.03 aired. I just couldn't come up with an ending until after I watched 7.03. That episode is not mentioned directly in this fic though.

**January 22, 1983**  
>He and mommy had just gotten back from the grocery store. They went to get all the stuff she needed to make a pie for his birthday, because he was turning four in two days. That meant he was going to be a big boy. He was also going to be a big brother; mommy said so. She had a baby brother or sister growing in her belly and she said Dean was going to be her little helper when they finally got here. Dean and daddy were excited about the baby coming, and though mommy said she was, sometimes she looked sad when rubbed her belly.<p>

When Dean and mommy got home, they saw that daddy had come home from the garage early. Daddy was sick. He was coughing and sneezing so mommy sent him to bed early, just like she did with Dean last week when he had a tummy ache. His mommy went to the kitchen to make some dinner and Dean decided to see what he could do. After all, he was soon going to be a big brother and with his daddy sick, he was sure his mom needed his help. He saved his Halloween costume for times just like this. He raced to his room to grab his cape and mask from his Batman costume, and then ran back to the kitchen to see how he could help his mom. She was making tomato rice for his Daddy. He remembered how good it tasted and how much better it made him feel when he was sick, so he knew he wanted to be a big boy and help. But as he reached for the pot, his hand ended up in the flames of the stove top instead.

It left him with a scar on the palm of his right hand and the notion to stay away from fire. Too bad the world had other plans.

**November 2, 1983**  
>So much of his life boiled down to that night, that one night. He lost so much he didn't know he even had. The only home he ever knew, his mother, and he truly lost his father that night as well. Whatever he and Sammy had of normal went up in flames that night, too. It would take them years to put all of the puzzle pieces together; to understand that the deck was stacked against them long before that night and that Heaven and Hell were working against them long after.<p>

They became reluctant hunters because of that night. Dean because he wanted to be his Dad's faithful soldier; Sam because he somehow ended up following in his father's footsteps after Jessica's death. They kept at it in order to fight for people who couldn't fight for themselves; who didn't understand what was out there. They kept at it because it was what they knew. They kept at it in order to survive.

**Forever in One Summer, 2008**  
>Surprisingly, one thing Ruby hadn't lied much about was Hell. While flames weren't the weapon of choice during his time there, they still did occasionally use them in various forms to torture him. And even when they weren't the weapon <em>du jour<em>, that didn't mean they weren't in the constant background during his forty years in the pit, filling up his throat with acrid smoke and making him feel as if he were moments away from suffocating. Just because they didn't burn you didn't mean you didn't suffer from their ongoing presence.

**Homecoming, Pudunk, U.S.A, 1998**  
>He never took comfort in fire's warmth. All of it brought up horrible memories not only from his childhood but from his time in the pit. The strike of a match, a pile of ashes. To his hunter's mind, flames were a finality that he was constantly reminded of; one he could never escape.<p>

But try to escape he did. Even if it was from as something simple as the Homecoming bonfire of whatever podunk town his dad had managed to dump them at this time. Sure he wasn't in school anymore, but the chick he had hooked up with was 18 and waiting out her senior in high school. She wanted to show off her 'older' boyfriend to her friends. Once he got there, he couldn't wait to leave. He had never needed an excuse to go make out with a girl, but hey, Rhonda Hurley was more than a willing participant and it meant that he got to leave the pitiful excuse of a campfire on steroids to go play tonsil hockey with some chick in the woods. He never dreamed that she would want him to try on her pink panties. Damn, he hated fire.

**Fall, 2011**  
>Bobby's house was gone. It was a burned out empty shell and Dean didn't think he could breathe if he kept looking at it. After his baby, it had been the only home he had known since he was four. He didn't think he could take one more thing. Not with Sam having hallucination and Leviathans wreaking havoc and Ca-<p>

Dammit! Why hadn't Bobby answered his phone? Dean had never been so close to giving up before.

**A Few Days Earlier**  
>If he took comfort in any element, that would be water. Fishing at a river or swimming with Sammy in some crappy motel swimming pool. Taking a walk by a creek just to think. And if he stayed a little longer in the shower after he got back from Hell, Sammy never complained beyond a knock on the door, or a "Hey Dean, are you drowning in there?" Even the first step in making his most beloved beverage required mixing hot water with the malt. Though he would never admit it, the water's calming presence was like a blanket that wrapped itself around him. When he dreamed, the most peaceful place he could be was sitting on a dock by a lake. Everyone who knew him understood how important it was, even if it went unsaid. Why even that one time in his dream he was hanging out on the dock and Cas...<p>

And Cas...Cas.

In one small moment, his blanket had been ripped away. Like a band-aid that had been left on for far too long, it pulled much more away with it in the tearing than the healing that took place during its presence. It was hard to lose your best friend. To watch him self-destruct through bad choices hidden behind the fabric of good intentions, quite another to have the final end come at a place that should have been a source of comfort, a place of calm. Never again could he look at a lake or river in the same way. Never again would he be able to linger in the shower, hoping to cleanse himself of the stains he felt on his body, his mind, his soul.

A part of him drowned the day Cas died. It went down to the bottom of the reservoir with him and didn't come back with his lonely trench coat. It wasn't the largest part of himself that he lost, but he knew it was important. And until recently, it had been growing. He was pretty sure it was the part of him that believed in redemption and that could trust in other people. It was the part of him that had faith.


End file.
